


boxes are easy, boxes are good. [alternatively titled: boxes suck dick. stop putting your shit in them.]

by atiredonnie



Series: the aa experience [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Characters Study, F/M, Spooky, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15247131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atiredonnie/pseuds/atiredonnie
Summary: “i think this is the beginning of a beautiful new world!”“says the girl wh0 can just ditch it whenever she pleases. seri0usly, aa, f0r s0me0ne with such an enthusiasm f0r death, y0u sure are building y0urself an awful l0t of escape r0utes.”“it’s a purely clinical interest sollux”“being dead is really only fun from the sidelines”“w0w, g0ing genuine, are we? it’s n0t a very authentic aaexperience with0ut the p0tent and 0mnipresent death fetishism.”“sollux, shut up”“i think i’ve earned the right to be a little bit wistful by now, no?”“wistful isn’t the right w0rd.”“oh? then what is?”“h0nest.”





	boxes are easy, boxes are good. [alternatively titled: boxes suck dick. stop putting your shit in them.]

the sky cracked open like a barrel of monkeys, and out poured the spirits.

it was strangely cathartic, watching the lost souls tumble from the depths of wherever, slipping through the cracks, unwanted change. 

the bubble tripped over them all, stretching and terraforming like mad to encompass their endless memories and experiences. seeing them, aradia reminded herself how glorious the battalion would be. if any battalion ended up happening, that is, providing the stress from a thousand doomed timelines didn’t invert this final resting place into a swelling ouroboros of fucking bullshit, swallowing everything in its path on a quest for irrelevance.

that was what she really was, in the end. irrelevant. a signpost or a doorway worked as a metaphor- but no, it wasn’t nearly self deprecating enough to fall into place the way it should, clicking into position with the sound a slot machine makes. 

aradia had recently become obsessed with the perfect comparison, a line to draw between two singularities connecting them eternally. if she was being completely honest with herself- yeah, as if that happened often- she wanted to fill the sky with these lines. boxes are easy, boxes are good. putting people in them? the idea just fit. it slid into a niche in her brain, marking her cranium with the words “this means something. this means everything.”

>>>rewind? 

another thought had flirted itself into her brain only a year ago as she stood on a pockmarked rock, staring up at a nuclear star, bright green apple and smelling like heat. she was still marveling at her body then, the pockets of beautiful flab, the sinew beneath her skin and the freckles covering her body like the craters on the meteor hovering mid-air, a rock trapped in amber and her feet tethering it. there’s an awful lot to marvel at when your blood is burgundy and your skin is just that. 

she loved the dead. she had then as well. flaunting her immortality and wholeness wasn’t part of the curiosity equation, although knowing her it probably factored in somewhere. she wanted to study their happiness, pore over it like a doctor diagnosing someone with a case of unfortunately well-adjusted. it was to punish herself, obviously. that’s what everything was, wasn’t it? a gambit by a psycho cherry alien to make herself hurt as much as possible. after all, if the dead could live themselves so much, why was she the exception? why did aradia megido never get to participate in the appalling and relentless charade of confidence? 

because paradox space designed it that way, maroon and blue and bitchy all over.

really, it wasn’t her fault, she told herself. she was built like an auto-mom, ticking cold, cold, colder- and then BOOM! a rush, a flushed influx, a flood of warmth. the gift that keeps on giving to everyone but herself. 

you get to be happy! you get to be happy! you get to be happy! and you get to be the one to further their happiness! and if that doesn’t make you happy, then i guess you’re just destined to be sad.

happy wasn’t what she was feeling on the rock. it was a bit too hot and crowded for that, just a little overwhelmed with corpses. sure, it was a good opportunity for a funeral, but the smears of blood didn’t enhance her mood in the slightest. nothing to celebrate there.

but hey, there was hope. maybe even placid, vapid acceptance of her circumstances and the people there. but then the thought rushed her mind like a freight train, and she saw the web of possibilities and outcomes spread before her, a map, even though everyone knows just where we’re going.

so she said her goodbyes and tipped some hats. she ran away, and she didn’t look back.

She can be happy in a bubble, she can be happy in a box, if she closes her eyes and bites her lips and greets the dead with a shit-eating grin, offering them a personal tour of the afterlife while they’re too catatonic to appreciate such a good deal. she can be happy in tricking them, she can be happy in devious fraternizations and internal factions and endless plotting and scheming and bustling. all she needs to do is be. and everything will come up roses.

there are no roses.

>>> skip to the end? 

no. 

>>>skip to the end?

no, fuck you. 

>>>skip to the end? 

i’m happy here. i’m in the middle. just let me be trapped in amber. let my boxes be had. 

>>>skip to the end? 

fuck you. fuck you. fuck you. 

>>>skip to the end? 

she skips to the end.

there are no roses. there are no boxes, either, as convenient as that might be for her. all there is is a barrel of fucking monkeys playing with fire, dollhouses, and everything in between. 

the sand beneath aradia‘s toes makes her feel like wanting something. she’s not sure when she discarded her shoes, only that they’re thoroughly discarded, and the feeling in her numb digits is beginning to come back in a needle-sequence swarm. there’s a lot of dust to grind. 

she briefly considers joining into the mess, and shrugs her shoulders. there’s an awful amount of fun to have, kicking ass and taking names, whipping and churning the temporal butter. but she’s much rather be watching the old souls and new souls slip between the cracks.

the idea fits into her mind like a puzzle piece. it’s the first thing that’s felt right that the timeline doesn’t demand from her. but it whines, like a tinny train whistle, demanding something from her she doesn’t have, and that thing is her everything. 

a mosquito trapped in amber just gets to die. no moving involved. 

a girl in a box just gets to hide. no feelings involved. 

a maid in a fight just gets to raise hell. no logic involved.

so she exhales a puff of sand, like a cloud of genie smoke, and runs for a spiderweb of cracks, bouncing up and down. a regular bag of tricks. a regular neurotic box enthusiast.

and she screams big.

>>>skip to the epilogue 

error. no epilogue found. try again?

**Author's Note:**

> hope the characterization wasn’t so irremediably shitty that i’m voted out of the homestuck fandom by committee.


End file.
